Conventionally, an IPO framework is used for designing a workflow between business processes. The IPO framework defines each business process as a set of IPO (INPUT/PROCESS/OUTPUT). The relation between one business process and another business process that uses the OUTPUT of the one business process as its INPUT is defined as an upstream/downstream relation, to create a flowchart. This makes it possible to accurately understand the dependence relation between the business processes.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2002-73708 describes a system that applies the IPO framework. The system automatically determines progress of a job based on workflow definition data prepared in advance, and a part table of the parts produced in respective steps.
Recently, in the semiconductor and other manufacturing industries, there are market demands to reduce the time of delivery and save cost, while the designing and producing processes become more and more complicated. In order to respond to such demands, it is desirable to make a plurality of business processes cooperate efficiently. With the conventional IPO framework, however, it is not assumed that a plurality of business processes depending on one another would be processed in parallel. Thus, even in the case where a downstream business process can be started during the processing of an upstream business process, the downstream business process would have to be started only after completion of the upstream business process. Further, it is presumed that any artifact would be transferred from an upstream business process to a downstream business process, and no function has been provided for arbitration between updates of the artifacts (deliverables) by a plurality of business processes. Furthermore, the workflow would be defined in advance by a manager or the like, with no presumption of dynamic update of the workflow.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a solution to these and other deficiencies of the related art.